


Open Book

by SqueakGirl



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Books, Finn Deserves All The Nice Things, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6182446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SqueakGirl/pseuds/SqueakGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn has never had a book to call his own. The books once in his possession had been mere First Order propaganda, and he could hardly call them his. But one evening General Leia Organa visits Finn in the hospital wing to give him a small, leather-bound book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open Book

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you for visiting my fic. This will be my first Star Wars fanfic. Please feel free to comment. I welcome constructive criticism.

Finn had never considered himself a book lover. In the First Order, he had read what had been assigned to him as expected. He had never really considered the books in his possession as his own. They were property of the First Order, and he as FN-2187 had been merely one of many faceless Stormtroopers lucky enough to have been issued reading materials. But now he had a book to call his own. A book that had been given to him as a gift and not as a tool of propaganda. 

And General Organa had been the one to give it to him.

She had been sitting next to his bed in the hospital wing, sitting straight in a metal-backed chair with her legs crossed. Her general’s uniform replaced with a long, plain blue dress that, combined with the bright whiteness of the hospital room, washed her pale skin in an icy tint. In her hand, she held a small leather-bound book. Finn could hear the dusty ruffling of paper every time she turned a page.

With a soft grunt Finn brought a hand to his face to rub the sleep from his eyes. He took a moment to take in the rest of his surroundings as he lifted his hand away. He lay in what appeared to be a private room in the hospital wing with white-metallic walls and a number of machines that rendered a series of beeps between the quiet intervals. The bed he lay in was covered in crisp white sheets that matched the hospital tunic he’d been dressed in. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” General Organa observed, snapping her book closed. 

“General,” Finn managed to mutter respectfully. He attempted to raise himself in bed to better address her.

“No, don’t get up, Finn,” she said quickly, moving from her own seat and helping him to sit, reclined against the bed’s pillows. The medication Finn was on made him drowsy so it took him a moment to realize how strange he found it that General Organa was fussing over his pillows. Finn wondered if he should brace himself for a reprimand. _Why else would she be here?_ Finn thought. He had never known a leader to act so informal. No, that wasn’t the word…. Friendly? Finn could not even imagine the cool and calculating Captain Phasma sitting next to any of her wounded soldiers as they recuperated. 

“I was just visiting,” explained General Organa once she sat back down in her metal chair. She pulled it a bit closer to the bed so that Finn could see her better. “I visit many of the brave individuals who have fought valiantly for the Resistance, as any general would.”

Finn managed a weak smile. “Thank you, General,” Finn mumbled still astonished by the whole situation. “But I can’t imagine why you’d waste your time on a broken down ex-Stormtrooper like me.” 

He tried to make it sound like a joke, but the humor didn’t quite reach the tone of his voice. He turned his face away from the General and stared down at his scratched and worn hands, his dark brown skin standing out against the anesthetically white sheets of the hospital bed. The whiteness reminded him of his Stormtrooper armor, and he quickly looked up to find something else to stare at. 

Finn blinked, his eyes fixed, albeit blurrily, at the corner farthest from his bed where a metal table had been set up. 

“What…? What’s all that?” Finn asked pointing and turning back to look at General Organa. The older woman gave him a small, knowing smile.

“From your admirers, Finn,” she replied softly. 

Finn turned his gaze back to the table. He saw a number of flowers in cafeteria water glasses and soup bowls; brightly colored banners cut from old shirts and uniforms strung about in a festive manner; polished medals and other trinkets glinting in the light of the hospital room; food and sweets stacked in precarious heaps, threatening to teeter over the side of the table; a black X-wing pilot’s helmet with various messages scribbled on its surface in silvery ink; and a small handmade doll fashioned out of old fabric and straw that had been made to look like Finn holding a blue lightsaber. 

Finn stared at the doll for a few more seconds before turning back to the General. “That’s all for me?” Finn asked feeling lightheaded again, but not from his medication. General Organa nodded.

“Why?”

The General gave him a quizzical look. “Because you’re a hero, Finn,” she said as if she was stunned that he didn’t know.

Finn let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. _Hero._ The word rattled about in his ribcage and bounced about in his head. It was still so new to hear, and he still wasn’t sure how it made him feel.

Finn smiled timidly at the General. “Thank you,” he said again with all the sincerity he could muster. It felt like all he could bring himself to say actually. Words alluded him at the moment. 

“You’ve done so much for the Resistance, Finn,” General Organa said with solemnity. “We would not be here today without you.”

Finn ducked his head feeling his eyes sting. He set his mouth in a firm line and nodded his head.

Wordlessly, General Organa reached over and clasped her hand over Finn’s. He expected her hand to be cold, but it wasn’t. He looked up at her.

The General had a kind face, Finn concluded. It seemed so open to him now. Not like it had been when he had seen her in the war room, surrounded by her people as she called out orders. And it startled Finn for a moment to think of a leader sharing such emotion with someone like him. He had grown accustomed to the cold, unfeeling white faces of his fellow Stormtroopers’ helmets and the stark and unforgiving chrome of Captain Phasma’s visage. General Organa’s face was pale and lined with eyes that had seen too much – but it was still kind.

Self-consciously, Finn raised a hand to his own face to tenderly feel the cuts and bruises there. He’d fallen hard on his face when he’d been struck down….

Finn became suddenly very aware of the fact that the hand that now rested atop his, comforting him, belonged to the mother of the man who had tried to kill him. A strange surreal feeling fell over Finn. The word “mother” echoed about in his head, and he wondered for a moment where his own mother was. Was she even still alive? Did she think of him? What would she think of him? Would she call him hero too?

He drew his hand away. General Organa straightened up. She held out the book she’d been reading. She stared directly into Finn’s eyes.

“I want you to have this,” she said quietly. “It’s an Alderaanian book – one of only a handful left in the galaxy after the planet was destroyed. The book is just an anthology of children’s rhymes and folktales, but I often find myself reading it from time to time. Some of the stories I remember my mother telling me when I was a child. It has brought me a lot of comfort over the years, but I wish for you to have it now.”

“General, I don’t think I can take that,” Finn said, knowing, through First Order propaganda, what had befallen Alderaan all those years ago. “It clearly means a lot to you,” he added.

She nodded. “It does. But I could not think of anything else I could give you that would represent the full extent of my gratitude, Finn. So please, take it, and take care of it for me.”

She held the book out again, and Finn took it with shaking hands. He clutched it too his chest without thinking.

“I promise I’ll keep it safe,” Finn vowed. 

The General smiled again. “I know you will, Finn. Thank you.”

The conversation apparently at an end, General Organa rose to her feet and left the room. 

Finn sat there staring at the small leather book in his hands. He ran his thumb down the edge of its spine, feeling the raised letters there. They had once been embossed with gold, but it had faded with the years. He turned the book up onto its spine and let it fall open to somewhere in the middle. The pages rustled and then settled, leaving a pleasant musty smell in the air. Finn turned a few more pages until he came upon the start of one of the folktales. It was about a little Droid that had gotten itself lost in a forest, but somehow through all odds had found its way home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please be sure to leave a comment to let me know what you thought!


End file.
